Tuor
'Tuor '''was an Adan of the House of Hador and great hero of Men, the only son of Huor and Rían. He was the cousin of Túrin Turambar. Biography Early Life Tuor was born in FA 472 after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad in which his father Huor died. After hearing that the battle was lost, Rían fell into despair and left Dor-lómin while still pregnant with Tuor. She would have been lost and died if not for the Sindar Elves of Mithrim who rescued her and took her to their home in the Mountains of Mithrim. Tuor was soon born and first fostered by the Grey-elves. Later, their leader Annael told his mother Rían that Huor had perished in the battle. She soon fell into grief in her early twenties and went to Haudh-en-Ndengin, the Hill of the Slain and seeing the mounds of rotting and despoiled remains, she fell sick and died. When the Easterlings came to claim their reward for aiding Morgoth in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, they occupied Hithlum and captured its people as their slaves. The Sindar moved their camp into the caves of Androth and it was there that Tuor spent his youth. In his sixteenth year, he grew angry with the Easterlings and their allies for the evil deeds they had done to his people and wished to fight them. Annael forbid this and Tuor obeyed. When the Elven group intended to move to the safer havens in the Mouths of Sirion through the Gate of the Noldor, Tuor went with them but the group came under attack by Orcs and scattered during the night. Tuor was captured and sent to the Easterlings and sold into slavery. A Thrall in Hithlum Tuor served the Easterling chief, the brutal Lorgan, who had been sent there by Morgoth and who cruelly oppressed the remnant of the House of Hador. He worked as a thrall for three years, at which point he had grown to his full stature, and became taller and swifter than any of the Easterlings. Wanderings Tuor then escaped, and lived the life of an outlaw. He travelled down Hithlum to the Cirith Ninniach, and then through the Gate of the Noldor into Nevrast. At the Gate of the Ñoldor, he met two Noldorin Elves, Gelmir and Arminas, who showed him the way into Nevrast. He spent the rest of the year in Nevrast, until he saw seven swans, and took it as a sign that he had tarried too long. He followed these swans down the coast until he reached the ruins of Vinyamar, the previous home of Turgon and his people. At this point, the Vala Ulmo, Lord of Waters, emerged from the Belegaer and appeared to Tuor, bestowing upon him a great cloak to shield him from the eyes of his enemies, and a quest to remind Turgon of the Doom of the Ñoldor, and to warn him of the Fall of Gondolin. He also found Voronwë, an Elf of Gondolin, who had been a mariner on the last Noldorin voyage to Valinor, saved from the wrath of Ossë. Tuor and Voronwë then travelled through the Fell Winter past the Pools of Ivrin, where they caught a glimpse of Tuor's cousin, Turin, wielding Gurthang, and making his way towards the wastes of Dor-lomin. Life in Gondolin ]] Passing through the Fell Winter, Tuor and Voronwë eventually arrived in Gondolin in FA 496. Upon arriving, he proclaimed to have been sent from Ulmo with a message to Turgon. Seeing Tuor arrayed in the devices of Ulmo, he was immediately taken to see the king, where he delivered Ulmo's warning to depart; that Morgoth was coming ever closer to discovering the location of Gondolin. However, Maeglin argued against Tuor and Turgon became conflicted. For he had grown to greatly love his city, which was by now as fair as Tirion itself, and he trusted still in it's secrecy and strength. As such, he did not evacuate as Ulmo advised. However, he did not wholly disregard the wisdom of Ulmo, and decreed that none should ever pass out of the Hidden City again. He ordered the passage through the Encircling Mountains to be sealed up, and as such Tuor was forced to remain in Gondolin, though he did so gladly. Tuor rose quickly in honor in the city, being of great stature both physically and spiritually and having had the privilege of conversing directly with Ulmo. Seven years after arriving in Gondolin, Tuor fell in love with King Turgon's Elven daughter, Idril Celebrindal, who loved him in return. Turgon, who already considered Tuor as close as kin, gave the couple his blessing. They were wed in a celebration of great happiness, and soon after, their only child Eärendil the Mariner was born, who himself became the father of Elrond and Elros. As told in ''The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, the Elves in Gondolin treated Tuor very highly: "Upon a time the king caused his most cunning artificers to fashion a suit of armour for Tuor as a great gift, and it was made of Ñoldorin steel overlaid with silver, but his helm was adorned with a device of metal and jewels like two swan-wings, one on either side, and a swan's wing was wrought on his shield". "A house was built for him upon the southern walls, for he loved the free airs and liked not the close neigborhood of other dwellings. There it was his delight often to stand on the battlements at dawn, and folk rejoiced to see the new light catch the wings of his helm."The History of Middle-earth, Vol. II: The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, chapter III: "The Fall of Gondolin" Tuor was one of the leaders of Gondolin in the Fall of Gondolin, and fought for the city in the attack by the forces of Morgoth. He achieved meritorious deeds including forcing the the great Urulókë to retreat. He also stopped attack on his wife and son by Maeglin, which he was able to thwart by throwing him from the walls into a fire. Afterwards he, his wife, their son Eärendil, and a remnant of Gondolin's people escaped through a secret way in the mountains and traveled to the Mouths of Sirion. Longing for the sea, Tuor eventually built the ship Eärrámë and sailed into the West with Idril. Despite his human state of mortality, the tradition of the Ñoldor was that when Tuor arrived with Idril in Valinor, bypassing the Ban of the Valar, he became the only Man to be accepted as one of the elder kindred, and thus shared with Beren and Lúthien, who were also granted a second life in Middle-earth, the exceptional fate of an immortal life in Valinor as long as Arda endured. Whether Eärendil ever found or saw his parents again is not known.The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter XXIII: "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin"Unfinished Tales, Part One: The First Age, I: "Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin"The Atlas of Middle-earth, The First Age, The Elder Days, "Gondolin" In expanded account of him in The Book of Lost Tales, he and Idril reach the Tower of Pearl on one of the Enchanted Isles in the Shadowy Seas and either one or both fell asleep there for an unknown period of time.Tuor at Annals of ArdaTower of Pearl at Annals of Arda Appearance The only note of Tuor's physical appearance appears in Unfinished Tales: "fair of face, and golden-haired after the manner of his father's kin, and he became tall and strong and valiant". Weapons In The Book of Lost Tales Part Two (The History of Middle-earth, Vol. 2), it says, "but he carried an axe rather than a sword, and this in the speech of the Gondolindrim he named Dramborleg, for its buffet stunned and its edge clove all armour.The History of Middle-earth, Vol. 2: The Book of Lost Tales Part Two, III: "The Fall of Gondolin" Translations References ar:تور de:Tuor es:Tuor fr:Tuor it:Tuor pl:Tuor ru:Туор Category:Sindarin words Category:Edain Category:The Silmarillion Characters Category:Characters in Unfinished Tales Category:Characters in The History of Middle-earth Category:Characters in The Fall of Gondolin